Religion Dispatches
…usual number of patients at his abortion clinic, Aid For Women, in Kansas City, Kansas. But then, this has been an unusual few weeks. Since mid-June, Dr. Yeomans (and the other abortion providers in Kansas) have found themselves scrambling to see as many patients as possible before today; as of July 1, these facilities will not be able to offer abortion services until they show compliance with new regulations handed down only weeks before. “The…
Read More
…f us—some sense of repentance. Although many conservatives praised Obama’s Tucson speech for not associating the violence of Tucson with the contemporary political climate, they missed the ways Obama attempted to set a penitent tone, calling Americans to a higher level of moral accountability. When I watched the University of Arizona ceremony leading up to the president’s speech, in some way the audience reaction seemed a bit surreal—more like a c…
Read More
…e him as the arbiter best suited to give voice to the political meaning of Tucson? Dorothy “Dot” Morris was 76; so was Dorwin Stoddard. Phyllis Scheck was 79. Bill Badger, the man who first wrestled Jared Lee Loughner to the ground even after he had been shot himself, was 74. Even Gifford’s assistant, Gabriel “Gabe” Zimmermann, was 30. This was not a young crowd. But Christina Taylor Green was young—just nine years old. And she bears additional sy…
Read More
…was caught after the murder, fleeing halfway across the state, he had the phone number of an Operation Rescue leader on his dashboard—the tip of the iceberg in terms of the broader connections he’d built with anti-abortion extremists. The church, Roeder would later testify, emerged as the only place he could find a shot at Tiller, around the elaborate security measures the doctor had learned to follow at his clinic and home. “Justifiable homicide…
Read More…an atheist his lack of belief in God led him to allegedly commit this atrocity. Special Guests, a service that books conservative guests on talk radio, has been heavily promoting pundits looking to pin the blame on the shooting on the left. Sarah has an earlier post on some of the spins Special Guest is promoting here. Today, the booking site is promoting Ted Shoebat, who says that being an atheist leads one to commit mass murder. “It’s actually…
Read More…you were upset with the opening invocation at the memorial service for the Tucson shooting victims. Here’s what you had to say about it on Twitter: Father Sky and Mother Earth, seriously? You probably didn’t realize that it was a nod to Native American beliefs, rather than a New Age-y expropriation of those beliefs. That’s all right, I understand. Religion isn’t your beat. Besides, New Mexico and Arizona are exactly alike. How is a major CNN contr…
Read More
…dy itself, he explained, demanded what we have learned to call “civility”: Tucson reminded us that… each of us is a part of… something more consequential than party or political preference. We are part of the American family… We share common hopes and a common creed… We can… we must… work together. But he went further, making the newfound clamor for “civility” a mark of American exceptionalism: All American children share “the dreams of a little g…
Read More
…to continue to shrink into the insularity and disorganization that caused the Philadelphia Archdiocese to decline so precipitously? It remains to be seen. Meanwhile, faithful Catholics and others who want to see the Pope may be losing heart. 10,000 tickets for the Pope’s Speech at Independence Mall sold out in two minutes on Tuesday, with 394k people trying their best to get a few. Tickets are already being scalped at $100 and up on craigslist. I…
Read More…nce, with the House resolution honoring the dead. It is possible that out of this tragedy will emerge hopeful signs, perhaps only in the short run, that differences can be overcome; that a national spirit does indeed bind us together in spite of differences in politics, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and religion. This power is also evident in the collective disgust we all feel in the face of upcoming protests by members of the Topeka, Kansa…
Read MoreVia the Kansas City Star, the Kansas State Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing tomorrow to answer the question: do our religious freedom laws adequately protect us from the gays? I’m just kidding about that characterization, but after the failure of HB 2453, which would have permitted discrimination by business owners and government employees, conservatives in Kansas are still pressing for a modification of the state’s religious freedo…
Read More